Y'know, I just haven't felt like blogging lately. It's part boredom, part slight depression at my inability to find work and a whole other mess of things that have sorta killed my desire to write for other people. Also, I've been focusing on writing my music, which has been making me very, very happy. What brought me back into the blogosphere? Not your nagging. Especially not yours, Magers. Fittingly enough, it was an awesome sandwich.
You ever see that movie, Spanglish? It was pretty good. I went to see it with my friend Amber. When we left the theatre, discussing the movie, I had to admit that I had found it hard to focus during the second half.
"It was the sandwich, wasn't it?"
She's not normally psychic, to my knowledge, but she was right. Adam Sandler's four-star chef character had made himself a sandwich in the middle of the night that looked so good that I was beside myself. She had guessed it because, well, it's no secret that I love sandwiches, but apparently also Conan O'Brien had been enthusing about it on his show the night before. Anyway, I'm talking to you about it now because when I opened the Spanglish DVD this afternoon, the awesome sandwiche was pictured on the disc. That was funny. Apparently lots of folks noticed how awesome it was. Then I notice the DVD extra feature: How to Make The World's Best Sandwich. Which inspired two things: 1.a top five post 2.plans for a sandwich later tonight.
Top Five Extras/Features I've ever seen on a DVD.
1.The World's Greatest Sandwich (from SpanglishClearly you saw this coming, as I explained it all up above. What a great way to use the DVD to extend my enjoyment of a movie.Here's a link to the recipe (transcribed from the DVD).
2.The Fart Track (from Wet Hot American Summer)
One of the commentaries on this movie is a track that contains nothing more than the regular audio stream from the movie, but with some farts added in where it would be funny to have them. Exactly the sort of bizzare creativity I'd expect from The State folks.
3.Pretty Much the Whole Memento Special Edition DVD, but specifically watching the movie "forward" and the commentary during the final scene.
I don't know if you've ever seen this. It's a DVD that's made up to look like the psychiatric case file of the film's hero, Leonard. The menus of the disc are set up like psychological tests. It's really crazy, and really cool as long as you have something to walk you through it. Otherwise you could spend all night trying to get the movie to play in Dolby or something. But, among the menus and crap of the DVD is a psychological test where the viewer has to put a series of pictures in order. If you put them in reverse order instead, you get to see the movie forwards, which is something I had wanted to see since...oh, about an hour after I started watching the movie for the first time.* Avast, thar be spoilers in the next paragraph.
The other crazy thing about memento (again, skip this if you've never seen the movie. Then go see the movie) is a little built-in trick at the end of the audio commentary. I don't want to explain it, so here are the deets, courtesy of Christophernolan.net:
The commentary has in fact four different endings. If you select the commentary track and the manually swith to a point in the movie after 1:37h the commentary will begin to run different.
But if you pass the point at 1:37:15 in the movie, your dvd player will randomly select one of three different versions. This doesn't work on all DVD Players (mostly Software-Players eg. PowerDVD). So another propability to hear the other version is to select the commentary track and the switch to one of the last three chapter through the DVD's Menu.
The three versions begin to differ as Jimmy get dragged down the stairs. They are edited in a way that they all contain equal elements but differ hughly in what Nolan states regarding Teddy and his realtionship to Lenny.
Differences:
1.This version doesn't really interpret it comments more the action. Note that this version matches the one you hear played backwards exactly.
2.The second version states that Teddy is lying in last scene. Nolan says that the audience sees "Don't believe his lies" through the whole movie, but that they are so desperately in the need for answers that they simply will believe Teddy. This version sounds to me like Chris Nolan tries to trick the listener into believing or maybe considering another solution. But Nolan completely dismisses that Lenny has willing tricked himself and thus written down that Teddy is a liar.
3. This version is the most interesting and worthwhile. Here Nolan states that Teddy says the truth in the last scene.
Whew. How's that for blatant editorializing? It's only worthwhile if the whole movie was a sham? Okay, moving on. Pretty neat, Huh? To round it out, here'a a link that'll give you the power to not fear the second disc of the Special Edition DVD. Dan used to have a handy printable guide that slipped into the movie's case...but I can't find it online. Whoop.
4.The "Greatest Film Ever" Commentary (from Showgirls. I've never seen this, but I love the idea. A guy who loves Showgirls explains why it's awesome, for the length of the whole movie. (un?)fortunately, you can only get this version of the movie if you buy the ridiculous Showgirls boxed set, which contains nothing short of the movie, playing cards, shot glasses, a blindfold and some pasties, if my memory serves me. The only downside is that, well...it's thirty bucks, and the movie in the box is Showgirls. Buy it here.
5.There's no way to sugarcoat this. "Carrot Top Commentary" (From The Rules of Attraction Apparently the director of this film wanted to get someone who had never seen it, then show it to them and see what they had to say during the movie. A few things are wrong with the idea, one being that you can't really talk through a movie you've never seen unless you're just going to make fun of it. Second, if you could hire anyone to make fun of something, why would you pick carrot top? Anyway, I like the idea of someone so random and stupid recording a commentary track for a movie. So, there you go.
Now, that's not a great list or anything--please, keep it up in the comments, and tell me about ones you like. Because, hey. The Blogging Street runs both ways.
You ever see that movie, Spanglish? It was pretty good. I went to see it with my friend Amber. When we left the theatre, discussing the movie, I had to admit that I had found it hard to focus during the second half.
"It was the sandwich, wasn't it?"
She's not normally psychic, to my knowledge, but she was right. Adam Sandler's four-star chef character had made himself a sandwich in the middle of the night that looked so good that I was beside myself. She had guessed it because, well, it's no secret that I love sandwiches, but apparently also Conan O'Brien had been enthusing about it on his show the night before. Anyway, I'm talking to you about it now because when I opened the Spanglish DVD this afternoon, the awesome sandwiche was pictured on the disc. That was funny. Apparently lots of folks noticed how awesome it was. Then I notice the DVD extra feature: How to Make The World's Best Sandwich. Which inspired two things: 1.a top five post 2.plans for a sandwich later tonight.
Top Five Extras/Features I've ever seen on a DVD.
1.The World's Greatest Sandwich (from SpanglishClearly you saw this coming, as I explained it all up above. What a great way to use the DVD to extend my enjoyment of a movie.Here's a link to the recipe (transcribed from the DVD).
2.The Fart Track (from Wet Hot American Summer)
One of the commentaries on this movie is a track that contains nothing more than the regular audio stream from the movie, but with some farts added in where it would be funny to have them. Exactly the sort of bizzare creativity I'd expect from The State folks.
3.Pretty Much the Whole Memento Special Edition DVD, but specifically watching the movie "forward" and the commentary during the final scene.
I don't know if you've ever seen this. It's a DVD that's made up to look like the psychiatric case file of the film's hero, Leonard. The menus of the disc are set up like psychological tests. It's really crazy, and really cool as long as you have something to walk you through it. Otherwise you could spend all night trying to get the movie to play in Dolby or something. But, among the menus and crap of the DVD is a psychological test where the viewer has to put a series of pictures in order. If you put them in reverse order instead, you get to see the movie forwards, which is something I had wanted to see since...oh, about an hour after I started watching the movie for the first time.* Avast, thar be spoilers in the next paragraph.
The other crazy thing about memento (again, skip this if you've never seen the movie. Then go see the movie) is a little built-in trick at the end of the audio commentary. I don't want to explain it, so here are the deets, courtesy of Christophernolan.net:
The commentary has in fact four different endings. If you select the commentary track and the manually swith to a point in the movie after 1:37h the commentary will begin to run different.
But if you pass the point at 1:37:15 in the movie, your dvd player will randomly select one of three different versions. This doesn't work on all DVD Players (mostly Software-Players eg. PowerDVD). So another propability to hear the other version is to select the commentary track and the switch to one of the last three chapter through the DVD's Menu.
The three versions begin to differ as Jimmy get dragged down the stairs. They are edited in a way that they all contain equal elements but differ hughly in what Nolan states regarding Teddy and his realtionship to Lenny.
Differences:
1.This version doesn't really interpret it comments more the action. Note that this version matches the one you hear played backwards exactly.
2.The second version states that Teddy is lying in last scene. Nolan says that the audience sees "Don't believe his lies" through the whole movie, but that they are so desperately in the need for answers that they simply will believe Teddy. This version sounds to me like Chris Nolan tries to trick the listener into believing or maybe considering another solution. But Nolan completely dismisses that Lenny has willing tricked himself and thus written down that Teddy is a liar.
3. This version is the most interesting and worthwhile. Here Nolan states that Teddy says the truth in the last scene.
Whew. How's that for blatant editorializing? It's only worthwhile if the whole movie was a sham? Okay, moving on. Pretty neat, Huh? To round it out, here'a a link that'll give you the power to not fear the second disc of the Special Edition DVD. Dan used to have a handy printable guide that slipped into the movie's case...but I can't find it online. Whoop.
4.The "Greatest Film Ever" Commentary (from Showgirls. I've never seen this, but I love the idea. A guy who loves Showgirls explains why it's awesome, for the length of the whole movie. (un?)fortunately, you can only get this version of the movie if you buy the ridiculous Showgirls boxed set, which contains nothing short of the movie, playing cards, shot glasses, a blindfold and some pasties, if my memory serves me. The only downside is that, well...it's thirty bucks, and the movie in the box is Showgirls. Buy it here.
5.There's no way to sugarcoat this. "Carrot Top Commentary" (From The Rules of Attraction Apparently the director of this film wanted to get someone who had never seen it, then show it to them and see what they had to say during the movie. A few things are wrong with the idea, one being that you can't really talk through a movie you've never seen unless you're just going to make fun of it. Second, if you could hire anyone to make fun of something, why would you pick carrot top? Anyway, I like the idea of someone so random and stupid recording a commentary track for a movie. So, there you go.
Now, that's not a great list or anything--please, keep it up in the comments, and tell me about ones you like. Because, hey. The Blogging Street runs both ways.
posted by Brian at 5:45:00 PM
2 Comments:
The only one I can think of off the top of my head is from The Office Christmas Special DVD -- the full David Brent "If You Don't Know Me By Now" video. This is IMO the graddaddy of all DVD extras, and the best example of why DVD's are exciting in the first place.
Oh, and there's also the art gallery on The Royal Tennenbaums DVD that (I think) explains in depth those 2 paintings Owen Wilson's character had in his apartment.
Oh, and there's also about 100 extra clips of Mike Schenk talking about random stuff on the American Movie DVD. I love that guy. Why don't I own that DVD?
Oh, and on the latest Reservoir Dogs SE DVD, there is apparently a way you can get to a re-inactment of the "ear-cutting" scene using action figures, but I cannot confirm this.
I'm sure I can think of more, just give me some time.
Brian sorry to be such a bitch about you not writing; I just had nothing better to do on that day. It's good to have you back as well.
So, DVD extras. Well all I can say is that Punch Drunk Love has got some of the best. One: D&D Mattress Man Commercial. Freakin' amazing, honestly. I thought that all of the extras were going to be semi-serious, but nope, not this one. It was great!*
Two: the beautiful art/music show. No, I don't do drugs.
Shrek: Making the ginger bread man talk is well worth the price of the DVD.
Once Upon A Time in Mexico: The director shows how to make the dish from the film (some sort of pork). It looked tasty...but now that I think about it, it was kinda weak.
Okay than, I must go and teach. Thanks again, oh and Mike you were (action) figurin' right, the re-enactment on the R. Dogs DVD was pretty good. Also check out the early cuts of the film with Steve Buscemi and Tarantino. That man is a horrible actor, and I don't mean Donny.
Take care.
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